CRI听力:Indoor Snow Park - The Coolest Place in Beijing

Steve Zdarsky: "it's basically a big fridge that's turned on all summer long."

Steve Zdarsky has snow in his blood. 100 years ago his grandfather Mathias Zdarsky helped introduced skiing to Austria. Now he's doing the same in China.

"If you think about skiing or snowboarding, China is definitely not the first country you think about. But China is big, it's a huge market. If you look at Japan, for example, which was or still is the biggest snowboarding market in the world, so Asians are really into freestyle snowboarding and skiing."

The indoor ski resort that Steve Zdarsky helps run is located 40 kilometres northeast of Beijing city centre. The complex includes a hotel and covers 40 thousand square kilometers.

Entering the ski slope the temperature plummets. The whole place is covered in snow. There are two main slopes. One for beginners, and one full of riders practicing jumps.

Dominic: "I'm currently being pulled up a ski slope inside a huge building. Full of snow and jumps with snowboarders practicing on as I speak. The whole room is chilled to -1 degrees."

While skiing purists may dismiss indoor slopes as small and artificial, others believe they're the perfect place to practice technique.

"This is a great thing to do when it's not winter. I often come here."

"It's much easier to practice snowboarding here than on the ski slopes in the mountains."

"This is really exciting. I used to skateboard but decided I needed something more. So now I snowboard. "

"Actually it's cool here, you know. Especially in the summer and it totally contrasts with the temperature outside."

The indoor ski resort is designed to accommodate 3,000 visitors per day. It's particularly popular with snowboarders who come to practice jumping and sliding on the various boxes and rails planted in the snow.

Dominic: "I'm currently standing next to a metal pipe which snowboarders and skiers are jumping and sliding on."

Running an indoor ski slope in the middle of summer must be expensive. But manager Steve Zdarsky says that's not a problem.

"Er… Definitely not. Because we have the snowboard park here now there's a lot of people. But at the end of the day, if the ski resort makes money or not, I'm not sure. But it's a big company. The ski resort is not the main thing they do."

The development company behind the project also runs a 180-room triangular-shaped hotel, which sits under the ski slope.

Skiing has become increasingly popular in China over the last few years. Now there are around 200 winter resorts and around 500 million skiers. But thankfully not all of them want to ski in the summer.

For CRI, I'm Dominic Swire.